Sunday, 13 May 2012

A to Z of African official IP websites no.48: Swaziland

The 48th stop on Kingsley Egbuonu's trek around Africa's official intellectual property websites takes him to Swaziland. Although that country has a bright and colourful flag, its internet presence is sadly a good deal less bright. This is what Kingsley has to report:

Overview

Swaziland is a Contracting Party to a number of treaties on intellectual property including the Paris Convention for the Protection of Industrial Property and the Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works. Swaziland is also a Member State of ARIPO.

Copyright Office

• The Intellectual Property Office (Ministry of Commerce Industry and Trade) is the competent office responsible for copyright and related rights in Swaziland.

• This office currently has no website of its own, but some information can be found on the Ministry’s own website here.

Industrial Property Office

• Currently same as above.

Social Media Presence

None found.

Intellectual Property update in Swaziland

Afro-IP has reported on various developments of practical significance in recent times including posts here, here and here.

Conclusion

Afro-IP is usually unsurprised to see a member state of OAPI or ARIPO without a website for its IP office. For example, we have seen Lesotho, Liberia, Guinea and Côte d'Ivoire, to name but a few, all currently have no web presence for their respective IP offices.

We wish Swaziland well but hope that it can at least see how its nation branding project – which engaged a group of individuals from various local marketing and brand consultancy companies -- revolves around IP.